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I am in retail and I have virtually LIVED Christmas for the past three months...PLEASE GET IT OVERWITH ALREADY!!!!!

It is such a commercial piece of crap holiday...whay can't it be more like Thanksgiving where there are no gifts?

Every year at this time I seem to be at my lowest when dealing with the fellow people who are so naieve about the holidays...I have lost that naivety since I selll crap three months or more before the actual holiday WHICH ISN'T EVEN JEEBUSUS BIRTHDAY!!!! I hear it truly was in August or something.

I am no longer a fresh virgin mind, it has been raped by commercialism and bore the spawn of bitterness.

Jeff, I am so with you on this. I've been completely soured on Christmas this year. It's lost all meaning for me - to the extent that I'm not even depressed by it all, I'm just indifferent. If they cancelled Christmas next year, I'm sure I wouldn't even notice. Roll on New Year!

And poor you Jeff, bearing the brunt of all that unadulterated consumerism. I think I would have walked. No, I would have run, as quick as I could, to the nearest exit.

Even so, I hope everyone enjoys the day. I will, despite my indifference. We're springing my partner's elderly mother from the nursing home for the day and I'm sure it will be an adventure not to be missed.

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts

HA! I am already through the hoops with Christmas this year! Already did the whole she-bang. Only possibly thing tleft is seeing my nephew 'find Santa' in the morning, but that is growing less likely as rain is coming in now and it is due to get cold. I'm usually just as soured on the whole thing as you folks. For some reason, my turned out pretty groovy this year. I think the main reason is that the whole focus for us this year ended up so much more on the fellowship side than the commercial side (although I confess that I did end up with some loot).

Bah humbug and Ho, Ho, Ho... (you pick whichever one bring you the most joy)

I got some loot too, but I'm just feeling blue spending another Christmas eve alone. Wow, a real downer of an evening. Haven't felt this sad in a while. Oh well. I'll sleep it off and refocus in the am. I'm really hurtin tho.

I'm not really feeling the Christmas eve loner blues tonight. I just feel like it's already past the actual date!

Sorry you're having holiday blues, razorbill. But if you think about it...you just got a reply. Guess that means you aren't 100% alone, are ya?

UPDATED TO SAY: Shoulda known I could count on Paul to chime in with me! LOL ! Take it from us! (Haven't we been here before, Paul? I do believe we have! And in hindsight, I wouldn't have traded it for anything!)

You know that night was kinda special, one of those things I'll never forget. The other night I popped into Manhunt (just for kicks) and got a msg from a hook-up from almost 3 years ago, asking me if i remembered him. Did I?! We started chatting about that nite, and it was also just one of those special nites, even tho it was a hookup and I was TOASTED!!! lol

And Ernie, I'm taking that free cuddle upstairs with me when it's bedtime!

I think the holidays can be BAH for all types of people in all different ways. Some of us are lonely and sad at Xmastime. Others get so frazzled by all the preperation and shopping, and can't enjoy the holiday for what it should be. Then there are those who THRIVE on all of it, and are merry merry merry all thruoghout and make you sick!lol

I don't like the shopping part of it AT ALL! I never know what to buy someone. And that makes me nuts, cause I rack my brain and get nowhere! I have yet to spend Xmas with someone special. But I do get to spend Xmas Eve with my brother and his wife, and her family at my brothers house. And tonite I realized that as we've grown, I really do love my brother, and he really does love me. It's been a long road ( he was always an animal!! lol)

I've been singing out the 'laborious' part for days now! Just made up the rest. I'm waiting for somebody like Em to come along with a second verse! Glad you liked it...just heard it on the TV from some X-Mas church thingy.

so you are saying that you need to rest and relax. Christmas for you must take place sometime after the holiday craze. And you are saying thank goodness it is over and now you can take a breather. Good my friend. Hope you will find the rest you so dearly need.

I dont feel down at Christmas. I just feel indifferent. I'm not religious and I also dislike the crazy commercialism that it indeed is. So Christmas has no meaning to me.

I just buy a present each for my 3 nephews - and will only continue to do so while they're still kids - when they're older I wont bother. I don't buy for anyone else. I buy presents all year round for friends and family. I don't need an excuse to do it. This is the 3rd year on the run now that I haven't been any part of crazy Christmas shopper lunacy. It's FAB just shopping for vitamins while everyone else is losing the plot!

I do Christmas Day and Boxing Day with my family because they like to celebrate it and I don't want to rain all over their parade. But they know how I feel about it. If I ever didnt come back to the UK at this time of year, Christmas would just pass me by like just another day. No big deal.

Miss Melia The Grinch

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/\___/\ /\__/\(=' . '=) (=' . '=)(,,,_ ,,,)/ (,,,_ ,,,)/ Cats rule!

The difference between cats and dogs is that dogs come when called, whereas cats take a message and get back to you.

[in part]:...It is such a commercial piece of crap holiday...whay can't it be more like Thanksgiving where there are no gifts...

I agree...so true. I think a lot of people go tramping around the malls buying stuff for people, some of whom they don't give the time of day to the other 364 days of the year, bitching and complaining...because they think it's expected of them and/or that everyone else does it. And that's hardly a good reason. Moreover a lot of people can't afford what it costs. A recent statistic mentioned that 54% of people are still paying off 2005 Xmas credit card debt...geez. Yet no one makes us do this. It's up to each of us to make our own decisions about all of this stuff. All the retail ads etc. on TV...it's an illusion to which we don't have to subscribe. I'd even extend this to Xmas card exchanges. I do a bit of that, but get tired of doing so with, again, people from whom I hear nothing the rest of the year, and/or write Xmas card notes that are just about them (self-involved I guess) without even asking how you are doing etc. The hypocritical aspect of people's behavior around Xmas is extraordinarily off-putting to me.

Getting back to poor Jeff, having been in retail myself for 15 years until I ran out of it screaming I will say that January is worse. You get so 'up' to handle the rush... and then the mall is suddenly DEAD and you feel like a Macy's balloon sans the helium.

As for presents, too many years of the t-shirt or sweat shirt, right or wrong size, from my mother sporting the name of a city, tourist destination or whatever, the wrong color, etc. and, this year, a digital frame which would be fine if my brother knew I had a digital camera (well I do now, but without the memory thing required to use the frame): I do immediate regifting. It can be a drop off at the Salvation Army. A placement near but not inside the trash area of an apartment builidng. Or, yesterday, a drop off where I work which found a very happy recipient.

My reward? I couldn't cancel my brother's paper version gift subscription to a financial newspaper without also canceling his access to it online, but, get this, I could use my unused online access with my current paper subscription, so he got his gift AT NO COST to me. Is there justice in the world? Win

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Winthrop Smith has published three collections of poetry: Ghetto: From The First Five; The Weigh-In: Collected Poems; Skin Check: New York Poems. The last was published in December 2006. He has a work-in-progress underway titled Starting Positions.

Jeff, I'm sorry to admit that I did a lot of online shopping so I avoided the stores. I did one day of shopping walking around this past Saturday in a village across the river form here called New Paltz. Funky stores, unusual and quality stuff. And it was sunny and warm - so a great shopping experience. The mall near us was prob like the movie "Dawn of the Dead" - zombies pushing around shopping carts with little zombie children screaming for blood and flesh.

Alisen, In my family we ask each other what we would like and then we go get it for them and throw in another gift or two for the surprise factor. I wasn't into all the spending this year, but it beats an empty candle holder. Fortunately, I am not your sister's brother - I would have given it to her long ago with both barrels - for real. I think the crappy gifts and the "sin" thing belie little respect in your direction. She is thoughtless. You can do two things - give up the gift exchange all together - or do something bold; like print out your post here and read it to her in the presence of other family members. BTW, demand a public retraction of the the "sin" opinion. This is what I would do, but mind you there may be a lot of silence between you for a while. Personally that wouldn't bother me if I felt I wasn't being given due respect. I include here a virtual gift i think you do deserve.Razorbill

I love Christmas. Nowdays it's the only time I get to see my family and have some good home-cooked meals. I didn't buy any gifts this year (not one single item). Nobody cared, but they are kinda used to me not buying much for the holidays. I like to get my neice and nephew good gifts for their birthdays. That's about it.

Christmas is suppose to be about religion, but since I don't do church anymore, it's mostly about family, friends and lots of food.

Hi Razor I felt in a way it is better to edit it. I think part of the problem is which can never get resolved is at the end of the day I am putting too much emphasis ( expectation) on things. When I was in the hospital awhile back- not HIV related my sis paid for the phone , so in a sense I can't write her off totally, she did make the effort, but as I said I felt it shoddy, so who has the issues?

I stopped getting family $20 gifts when I was 16. And yes one xmas I didn't get anyone but the kids anything.So I feel it is a complex issue. Plus as I was brought up, it is not the gift but the thought. I guess maybe this is the crux-

I am not sure how much of this is me and how much is normal as I see how many gifts get exchanged, but as I said above ( and edited) It is just the fact when you go out of your way to get some one a good gift - jelly beans just don't cut it. I don't think anything would get resolved because she could just say she doesn't have the money or some other excuse- it is just one of those things that just is.I am always invited to her house for meals and in every other way am made to fell loved and welcome- which is why I chose to edit the original post because it might be just post xmas blues. My gifts to people are pretty cool, usually something useful or interactive - or creative, maybe it is beyond hope to expect others to be like that. I also think maybe my expectations on her her might be a little too much as I don't have a lover showering me with gifts, in which case I would write this off easier. Before I get to sound to poor me her daughter got me a great sleeveless jacket from the gap so it isn't like I am totally being ignored .

My plan is just return it and add a few bucks and get something I really like and just move on- Since I was 16 and kept getting Deep Purple records and long underwear this seems to be how xmas always played out. After my mom died I went through a period of not seeing my siblings for the holidays it is just better with friends. In a way I think she would feel hurt even though I can point out that I spend more thought and money on her gifts. So you see how I am see sawing this issue .I know if I really needed her she would be there. If she didn't get anything I would agree about being thoughtless, it is more just getting by( anything will do), and where is it written that is not good enough. I guess if I wasn't as close to her as my other siblings it wouldn't bother me. My problem is criticizing someone's choice of gifts seems gauche. Maybe this is why we all have the xmas blues-

I am glad it's over.

« Last Edit: December 26, 2006, 10:27:10 AM by alisenjafi »

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"You shut your mouthhow can you sayI go about things the wrong wayI am human and I need to be lovedjust like everybody else does"The Smiths